Monday, April 25, 2011

Brenna modeling her new white dress and purple flower headband. (My sister made the great headband and I made the dress)

so, I have been planning this dress above since Feb. - I bought the pattern and couldn't wait to try it out (and I even made a dress from this pattern for a gift) - the pattern is pretty easy, but it does take a ton of fabric for a little girl's dress - I'm not sure what Brenna doesn't like about the dress, but I had to bribe her with chocolate for this photo shoot, and she hasn't wanted to wear the dress now that it is done. I'm crossing my fingers when the weather warms up that she will want to wear it (apparently, I made the waist too high for her style - at least that was her one complaint on the dress). But she sure did give me some great pics on the day she wore it for me :-)

Isn't that headband the cutest thing??? It really makes me wish that I looked as good in headbands as Brenna does....

I also decided this week to make some bags up. I thought this was going to be a fairly quick project, but with the embroideries I put on, they did take a lot longer than I expected (in fact, I planned to make 3 or 4 bags, but only got two done). The mice below are on a bag for my niece, Ally. They are little ballerinas - aren't they too cute???

front of the bag - I love the shoes with the name here (and it only works with 4 letters, so I'm really happy that I put on Ally instead of Allyson :-)

the two bags that I finished. Instead of buying an Easter basket for Brenna this year, I made the bag and we set it out for the Easter bunny to fill. This was the first year that Brenna really got stuff from the Easter Bunny at our house - the last two years we did some trips (hard to imagine that we went to Ireland last year and Italy the year before), so we never really did more than a small chocolate bunny at home.

Brenna helped with the choices for Ally's bag - of course, this meant once she liked everything on Ally's bag, she wanted things to be pretty much the same. The only regret that I have on Ally's bag is the white bottom. In hindsight, I would have liked to do a color on the bottom like I added to Brenna's, but I changed my plans after I already started Ally's bag. Karen - if it gets too dirty, we can use some soft fabric paints on the bottom (the bag is only surface washable with the fabric I used and all of the interfacing - so sorry!).

(oh, this bag will be Brenna's new dance bag - I have wanted to make a new bag since September when I found out she needed a dance bag, but haven't gotten around to it). Guess since I finally finished Brenna's curtains and the bag, I can move on to my wish list of projects from October, lol.

Brenna posing with some of the items from Divine Miss Gammy and Uncle Steven. She loved, loved everything she got from all the family that came up yesterday. Brenna has been drooling over these squishy ball things (the item in her hand) at the store, so she is so excited to finally have one - thank you so much to Divine Miss Gammy - what a cool Easter basket!!! I'm not sure how Brenna will be using her new bag (I may have to copy the design of this bag - it is pretty cute!), but so far the strap has already been used as a dog leash (not sure how much I have talked about this, but Brenna loves to use Justice's leashes for her stuffed animals and will also leash up Justice as well, so this "floral" leash will be used often (and I'm sure the bag too)). (Don't you all just love Brenna's "at home" clothes choice today - she wanted to look like a princess today :-)

One of my 2 favorite flowers - thank you so much for the flower Rusty!! I am so sad that I bought a hydrangea from the boy scouts and it died the day after I got it. I never even got a pretty picture of it :-( Hopefully, I can have more success with this pretty flower... Anyone have any words of advice for me on it???

Hello All!!

Hope all is well out there! We had a great Easter weekend here despite the poor weather (lots of rain here). Last week I was busy making some crafts (I was hoping it would clean up my craft room some, but I have quite a few more projects started than I should). I made some cute tote bags - one for my niece Ally and one for Brenna (we used the bag instead of an Easter basket). We have traveled over Easter the last two years (Dustin always had a good amount of vacation time around Easter in Germany), so this was the 1st year in a while that we could really do an Easter celebration with Brenna. I'm really glad that she attends a Christian preschool right now, as she came home several times this week to remind me that Easter isn't about the bunny and candy, but about Jesus and God.

Anyway, we all did enjoy some outside time on Saturday when we had a break from all the rain (seriously, a flood warning here now with all the rain - and more rain is called for all week - boo!!!). Brenna enjoyed having Dustin home for the long weekend too - they went up to the bike shop in Akron and also to the pool here in town. We really enjoyed having Dustin's family up for Easter lunch (Brenna was so sad that everyone left her house - she could have played until the sun went down with everyone there) and then we went over to friends in town for a great Easter egg hunt. Brenna had such a good day - I told her that I think we will have Easter candy in the house until July 4th now :-)

With all my crafting my week sure flew by! We had a pretty quiet day here today - worked on the letter G and H with Brenna and sorted out the candy that remained here from Halloween and then Brenna and I took a nice nap this afternoon :-) (we had to try to recover from all our partying yesterday).

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comments:

Thanks, girls, Brenna does look fantastic in her new white dress,purple headband and pink fluffy dress. The bags are so, so cute and adorable! That looks like a Gerbera Daisy and you should talk to Papa as he keeps mine growing outside in the summer and inside in the winter!

I would say mom is right about the gerber daisy, they are my favorite flower, but I've not had too much luck with them. The one I had last summer is at mom and dad's house for the winter, so I'm looking forward to getting it in the ground again! Love all your sewing and crafting! I will admit she looks better in headbands that I do too, but I love how the flower matches her super cute dress! She's already turning into quite the little fashion guru with suggesting the waist is too high, etc. Just tell her that's the way Hannah Montana wears hers and she'll probably never want to take it off! The bags are super cute as well. I can't wait to sneak a peek at those in person, they look quite grand! Hope your rain stops soon, we have a small break, but we are also planning to have rain most of the week! Love you!